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Editorial: UCLA must work to cultivate faculty diversity

Posted:

October 23, 2013

11:42 pm

The original version of this article contained information that was unclear and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for additional information.

A recent independent report commissioned by the UCLA Office of the Chancellor has highlighted serious problems with racial discrimination among the university’s faculty and the inadequacy of current policies to handle such complaints.

The recommendations presented by the report’s authors, an external panel headed by former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, do not do justice to the severity of the problem or properly seek to fix the passive administrative response identified by the report.

The proposed solutions boil down to a bureaucratic knee-jerk reaction. The primary suggestions, which amount to one new administrative position, a revised organizational flowchart and a handful of training programs, are insufficient efforts to treat what the report’s findings indicate are deep-seated problems related to institutional inadequacies.

University administrators must find new ways to actively to cultivate a more diverse academic body and faculty members must feel confident that the university will hand down strict punishment after a fair and thorough investigation of any allegations of discrimination among faculty members.

Tyrone Howard, a professor of education who has taught at UCLA for more than a decade, was among the faculty members who initially asked for the report.

Howard suggested to the editorial board that deans and provosts be evaluated on how well they are able to hire a diverse faculty. Ensuring that faculty members come from a broad range of backgrounds and specialties would be a first step for the university administration to shape UCLA’s departmental culture into one of greater diversity and understanding.

This is not an isolated incident. As last week’s report stated, many issues of alleged discrimination at UCLA were resolved without “any repercussions to the offending party.”For the university’s actions to meet their promises, the resolution of cases of discrimination should be conducted in the public eye, with clear explanation of the facts of the case as well as the punishment to be handed down by the University.

Like Chancellor Block said in his email last week, the report’s recommendations are only the first steps in addressing this campus’ handling of discrimination.

Campus administration has taken a timid step in the right direction. They must continue to make tangible progress to improve their institutional response to discrimination in the coming months. The initial outrage to the report’s findings should not be allowed to fade away with time.

Perhaps Howard put it best when he told the board that if the university only pursues the report’s preliminary recommendations, it would amount to “putting a Band-Aid on a big, gaping wound.”

Clarification: The original version of this editorial contained out of date data. According to the 2012 Diversity Statistics Regular Rank Faculty report, campus-wide faculty data indicates that only 2.5 percent of UCLA’s full professors are black, and only about 29 percent of the total faculty are women.

Thank you for your thoughtful piece. I respond with respect.The
problem with it is your definition of diversity. The religion of Leftism is now
the dominant dogma and ideology at our Universities. Diversity is defined
according to the leftist trinity: Race/Class/Gender. It has nothing to do with
American values. Hence, diversity at UCLA is defined as how much melanin
pigment is in a man’s skin, who he likes to have sex with, and how much money
he has in the bank. The goal of UCLA is therefore to have 13.3 % Leftist
blacks, 7.4% gay Leftists, and at least 63.8% poor Leftists.

American values say true diversity is diversity of ideas and
values. People who hold American values want diversity very much at our
Universities. Accordingly we want the English Dept at UCLA to have professors
who belong to the TeaParty as well as those that read moveon.com. Us
conservatives hold the definition of true American diversity. We could care less if these professors have ovaries, a large portfolio, are transgendered or have a particular shade color
to their skin.

You’ll never hear such things at UCLA because its essentially a
Leftist indoctrination seminary. Its an American tragedy. Leftism is a
very unkind regressive ideology.

Consider learning some American ideas and values. Check out
especially Prager University on the Web. Prager is one of America’s
finest thinkers, scholars and writers. He, like many of us was on the Left
before we relearned why American values are so wonderful

1.
5 minutes: Prager: The core of the American value system: Its trinity

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